Jackson County, Fla., rejects request to link toll road decisons to committee input

Saying they didn’t want to tie their own hands, Jackson County Commissioners on Tuesday refused a request to wait for a grassroots committee’s input before taking any action on a proposed toll road through Jackson County.
The county board has not yet been formally approached about the toll road idea, but it is widely known that Focus 2000,  a non-profit group based in Alabama, is seeking to create an unobstructed route from south Alabama to Interstate 10 in Florida.
Neighboring Washington County was asked to let the toll road run through that community, but quickly rejected the notion. The west side of Jackson County was the next most-favored route, Focus 2000 indicated, and since that revelation many in the Cottondale-area community have risen up in protest of the idea.
Among the most vocal opponents are some of the people who own businesses along U.S. 231 who fear the toll road would devastate their businesses by rerouting their traveling customers away from their storefronts.
Some also fear that the county might use its power of eminent domain to force the sale of property that would be in the path of the toll road, although not set route has yet been established for it.
Still others predict an increase in noise and an overall decline in quality of life if the toll road were to be built in their community.
About a month ago, at the request of a Cottondale woman who voiced these issues, Jackson County Development Council Director Bill Stanton hosted a town meeting to inform citizens of what he knew about the toll road proposal. The emotionally-charged session, scheduled to last two hours, went for more than four. Near the end of the marathon meeting, after the majority of the standing-room-only crowd had gone home, Stanton appointed a committee of five people who agreed to come up with some basic parameters they felt should be part of any feasibility   study related to the possible toll road.
Tuesday’s county commission meeting was attended by Stanton and those committee members, along with representatives of Campbellton, a community north of Cottondale which has voiced support of the toll road in concept.
Stanton spoke for the group, asking commissioners to refrain from any action, neither approving or rejecting the toll road idea, until the committee can come up with some guiding principles to use in considering it.
But an opposing contingent was also in attendance from the Cottondale-Alford area.
They urged the board not to base its action on what the committee did or didn’t do.
They objected on several fronts. Among their complaints was the fact that Stanton had hand-picked the members at the end of the Cottondale meeting after most people had left. They also didn’t think the committee could represent all interests and viewpoints, and thought it was inappropriate for the county to recognize the committee in any official capacity since it was not county-appointed.
Commissioners, in the end, declined to make the commitment Stanton asked for, and said they would instead be open to hear anything they or anyone else had to say if the toll road concept is brought before the board.